Memory & Marion
Our and our children's names
August 5, 1998
The Iranian
My closest Iranian friend just got pregnant. I have known her for twelve...right, twelve years now. We met when we were freshman in college.
"Memory," she said when I first asked her name. That was our first bond. We confided in each other how difficult it had been to grow up in America with our respective names, Khatereh and Maryam; otherwise known as "Caterah" and "Marion".
She had a car and commuted to school, while I lived on campus housing. Every afternoon for months she would pick me up for a ride or a night out or just some time with a Persian friend, something I hadn't experienced since I had left Iran almost a decade earlier.
I knew very little Farsi at the time. I had elected to attend Boston University because I had heard that there were a lot of Iranians there and I was longing for a piece of home.
Khatereh and her family gave me just that and she became my dearest friend. Together we would discover Boston, and discover what it is to be a Persian girl. After we graduated, Memory and I went our separate ways. She to graduate school and on to Switzerland for a job; me to Iran to discover the most meaningful time of my life.
Five years later, we found each other again. I called her one day after she had moved back to the States and said, "Khatereh, I'm married..." I could not possibly attempt to phonetically write out what I heard on the other end of the receiver. Soon thereafter she met someone. Slowly he became more and more of a permanent fixture in our conversations until finally, they got married, and as luck would have it, moved to the same city as I lived in.
A few months ago I met her for lunch. She must have seemed irritable because I asked her if it was that time of the month. "Reglee?" ("Do you have your period?") Oh my goodness! She wasn't laughing. She was staring up at me with a faint grin about to bust through her face. I couldn't believe it. "Yani meegee haameleh-ee?!" ("Are you telling me you're pregnant?"), I exclaimed. Sure enough, the smile broke through her face and she shrieked "Areh, baavaret meesheh?!" ("Yes, can you believe it?").
Here we are, standing in New York City, twelve years later and my dearest friend is pregnant. There is an extension of this precious woman growing inside of her and already it's precious to me. Even now, I dote over the cloudy printouts of her ultrasound like they're pictures of a new born. I coochi-coo at her stomach claiming that I'm saying hello to the baby every time I see her. If we go out together I protect her like she's antique china. Sometimes, I even find the time to wonder to myself weather her baby will be a boy or a girl and which one I'd be a better aunt for.
One time, after a few minutes of thinking about this wonderful memory of mine, I forecasted that if she were to have a girl she would name her Sara. A few days later Khatereh was at my apartment and I asked her what she'd name her child if it were to be a girl. She tilted her head a little and said "Well...I've been thinking about Sara."
Part of the reason for my accurate premonition is because of my experience with Caterah and Marion. I, like every other Iranian-born, foreign-assimilated person know, that I will give my children Persian names...correction, Perso-Anglican names. "Something that will be easy in English," as we all say. The other reason for my accurate prediction is because I am as intuned with my Memory as I am.
As far as memories go, Khatereh is one of my dearest; and whether growing inside of that tiny tummy of hers is a Sara or the proverbial Dara, it will be as precious to me as my memories are with Khatereh.
Related links
* Maryam Shargh's articles index
* Mr.
Enoughdaughters
Unusual Persian last names in Fars Province
* What's
in a name?
Names can be the beginning of love, fame and fortune
* "Banned"
and "Freed" Iranian names (Persian)
Official list of names (1995) you can and cannot put on your child
* Why
Change a Name?
dAyi Hamid is baffled by those who Westernize their names
* Features
* Cover stories
* Who's
who
* Bookstore
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